Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. has been included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI) 2023 for a sixth consecutive year, featuring as the only Indian pharma company. 

 

In 2022, Dr. Reddy’s adopted bold social goals as part of its Environment, Social, Governance (ESG) agenda to contribute to a fairer and more socially inclusive world through diversity, equity and inclusion measures – at least 35% women in senior leadership by 2030; gender parity across the organisation by 2035; 3% of the workforce to be persons with disabilities by 2030; and 100% living wages for on-premise extended workforce by 2025. 

 

Through the course of the year, the company introduced several measures to increase the proportion of women in leadership, in key business units, and to create an environment to support the hiring of women in ‘non-traditional’ areas such as sales and operations. The concerted efforts towards gender equality helped the company achieve year-on-year improvement in its score.

 

Adding to the recognition, Dr. Reddy’s has been included as a member of the Sustainability Yearbook 2023 for a third consecutive year based on the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) for 2022. The CSA covers assessment of 61 industries, 7,800 companies, 140,000 documents and 14 million data points. To earn inclusion in the Yearbook, companies must score within the top 15% of their industry and must achieve an S&P Global Sustainability Score within 30% of their industry’s top-performing company.

 

Relatedly, based on the CSA and further screening criteria, Dr. Reddy’s has also been named among global sustainability leaders for the 7th year in a row in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) in the Emerging Markets category, highlighting our value-creation and risk-mitigation ESG potential. The DJSI Emerging Markets Index represents the top 10% of the 800 largest companies in 20 emerging markets based on long-term economic, environmental and social criteria.

 

G.V. Prasad, Co-Chairman & Managing Director, Dr. Reddy's said, “Last year marked a major shift in our approach. Our ESG goals expanded from a heavy emphasis on environment to cover all aspects of ESG – environmental stewardship, helping patients, employees and community, and corporate governance. We moved from a good-to-do approach to placing ESG right at the core of our business strategy. This led to the adoption of distinctive patient-centric goals on access, affordability and innovation for patients. By making our goals clear and measurable, we have created strong accountability. With 20 years of leadership in sustainability in Indian industry, we see it as our responsibility to set the bar high and deliver on these ambitious targets.”

 

The 2023 index includes 484 companies representing 11 sectors, 45 countries and a market capitalization of US $16 trillion. The index measures gender equality across internal company statistics, employee policies, external community support and engagement, and gender-conscious product offerings. 

 

The Bloomberg GEI reporting framework includes over 70 metrics, each allocated to one of the following five pillars – leadership & talent pipeline, equal pay & gender pay parity, inclusive culture, anti-sexual harassment policies, and external brand.